“Maybe.” Royce’s eyes sparkled and that little smirk appeared. “Why do you think I asked you to teach me?”
I smirked. “Because you love to torment me.”
“Mmm, yeah, that is one of my favorite hobbies.” His eyes brightened and he played with that hoochie daddy chain. He twisted it on his finger and pressed his lip into it, his tongue running over it. It reminded me of how his tongue stroked my burned fingertips, and how he acted like it was nothing for him to do that for me. “I love this concept of your widowmaker pussy. Like. You fuck, and these people turn immediately into ghosts?” I dropped my jaw and dug my heel into his shin under the water. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Don’t talk about my pussy like that.”
“You did,” he shrugged. “Can’t I?”
“You can’t talk about my body. Only I can.”
“Shame,” he said, biting his lip. “It’s worth talking about.”
I eyed him and laughed. “Oh no. You’re doing it too.”
“Doing what?” His voice had turned raspy and I hated what it did to me. Harlan Royce was an expert flirt.
“You’re all ‘I gotta return your knife roll,’ and then you come over here, get in my hot tub, and start flattering me so maybe my pussy will turn you into a ghost like all the other ones.”
He tipped his head from side to side. “Well, I have always wanted to haunt people. Could be an easy way to make that happen.”
I raised my foot to the top of the water and sloshed a wave at him. “You are never not the worst.”
“That’s technically a double negative,” he retorted. “What you meant to say?—”
“Oh my god!” A dizzying, horny rage overtook me. I lunged at him, fists flailing, ready to take him out. He caught my wrists and we started to wrestle. He was way stronger than I was, but it was fun watching his muscles bulge as he worked for it. My shins settled on top of his thighs as we fought. His fingers wrapped around my wrists over my head. Our eyes met, but our arms stayed braced, not backing down. He held me there, both of us stilling before preparing for more fighting.
“If I’m the worst, why are you all over me, Chef?”
I let out a little growl, loosening my arms in the hopes that he would do the same. He didn’t relent though, using my surrender to yank me closer. I was almost fully straddling him, mere inches away from having my body locked against his. His thighs felt so fucking firm.
His gaze dropped to my lips and he licked his, eyelids heavy. His hair was mussed and wavier from the hot tub’s steam. In short, he was gorgeous.
My chest heaved, and he touched his tongue to his teeth while taking a languid look at my breasts. My wrists were still in his hands and his thumbs moved along the tender undersides of them. His eyes softened as they moved up my throat to my face, cataloging each feature. I couldn’t take my eyes off his face, off the tender way he was looking at me.
“Don’t,” I breathed.
“Don’t what?” Harlan’s lips were so close that I could feel the soft gust of his breath against mine. “What don’t you want me to do?”
I swallowed hard and tried to ignore the insistent pounding in my chest. “Look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
I was exposed, on the spot. Which of us was going to give in first? To admit that there was something sexual under all this teasing and arguing? Admitting that I was even thinking of him that way seemed absurd. It was even more outrageous that I was afraid to say it when I was straddling his lap, when seconds ago, he’d been eying my body like I was a steak in the lion enclosure. My breath shuddered, my voice meek.
“Like you don’t hate me.”
Harlan’s lips curled into a smirk. “Okay then. I won’t.”
His eyes flitted over my face, second after torturous second going by. Harlan liked to play with his food. Of course he did. “Do you want me, Emma?”
Emma. His voice was silk, the question falling from him so easily. I let my arms slacken and slowly, he lowered our joined hands. My palms found his chest, fingertips delicately landing in the grooves of his collarbones. His hands drifted down my sides, grazing my breasts, over my waist, to dig into my hips and pull me that final inch so our bodies were flush.
The reality check was shocking. I was in Harlan Royce’s lap, a hair’s breadth from his face, wearing nothing but my tiniest bikini. I let out a sad chuckle. “You’re going to use this against me.”
His head cocked back the slightest bit, like he couldn’t believe I said that. “No.” He flattened one palm against my lower back while scooping under my ass with the other, curling my hips toward him until I could feel what he wanted me to feel.
Him. Thick, and long, and hard, and was that . . .?
